In the fields of plastic materials, paints, printing inks, etc., specific masterbatches or pastes (also called mother mixes) are commercially employed to obtain colored materials. These pastes or masterbatches are normally admixtures of high concentrations of pigments, dyeing materials and other additives as needed.
These masterbatches or pastes are then dispersed in plastic materials, paints, and inks of various types, in order to achieve desired concentrations of dyeing materials and additives.
In the prior art, no single masterbatch exists which may be employed for dyeing all the categories of materials mentioned.
It is desirable, however, to have a masterbatch which can be employed for many materials, so that a certain pigment, dye or additive once dispersed in such a mother mix may serve for dyeing many different materials or as an additive to many different materials.
Such a single masterbatch would be particularly desirable in the paint industry, where one producer prepares various paints based on various polymer bases, such as nitrocellulose, alkyd, vinyl, acrylic, epoxy, polyester, polyurethane etc. The producer presently has to prepare, for a certain dye, pigment or additive, a multitude of pastes as necessary for the various paints of different polymer bases produced.
Furthermore, at the point of sale, it is necessary to have a large assortment of products with various polymer bases and of various colors in order to satisfy needs of the final users.
The producer must, therefore, have at his disposal a vast number of masterbatches for each color nuance and for each polymer base, so as to prepare the various paints as needed.
This entails a considerable delay in answering market requests. In order to obviate this delay, it has been necessary to have at the point of sale a vast stock of ready colored paints for each color in each polymer base.
This storage requirement entails a large capital outlay and may create serious environmental problems, as paints undergo alterations with time and if not used must be discarded.